Americans sing the praises of people who’ve made it “on their own.”
But I believe that the rugged, go-it-alone individual is a myth. Look at any achieved person and you’ll find at least one family member or stranger who believed in that person’s vision or ingenuity enough to invest in it.
In my own humble life, I’ve needed someone to steady my hand as I try new things, a cool partner to help re-balance my emotional portfolio during the bear market. My identity has been shaped by friends, family and my wife of 21 years.
Some of the companions who helped make me who I am today looked nothing like me. They did not walk, talk, sleep, play and commune as I did. A couple of them wriggled in water and blew bubbles. A few pranced, shimmied and purred. One galloped and whinnied. Many cuddled, licked and barked.
When I was eight, one of the stray cats living under my grandma’s house revived me by a few licks on my forehead after I tumbled head first over the handlebars of my bike. That scraggly girl never had a name, but she was the first to teach me that you don’t have to be kin to be kind.
“Brandy” was the only pony I ever rode. As her trainer gently led her around the paddock with me aboard, Brandy abruptly reared up and I slid off her back. Though winded and stunned, I looked into Brandy’s velvety eyes and completely surrendered to them. Sometimes, we hurt each other though we don’t mean to.
Sixteen years ago, my wife and I welcomed a betta fish into our home. “VA” was our aquatic love bug. When either of us came home, VA would practically hurl himself out of his fishbowl to greet us and he gently plucked flecks of food off our fingers. You could tell he was happy because he blew bubble nests on the roof of his watery world. VA only lived for eight months and weighed practically nothing, proving to me that love cannot be measured.
My most enduring support has come from canines.
Kane was the first of my first responders. When I was four years old, at the height of my parents’ blazing arguments, our 85-pound German Shepherd tucked his wet nose under my elbow and placed his paw on my belly. Fight amongst yourselves, but don’t tread on this one, he seemed to be saying. Kane was the valiant protector I rode bareback through a boreal forest in my dreams.
Paco, the black toy poodle, was my constant companion during junior high and high school when my popularity ran low and insecurity high. Together, we sacked the 17-year cicadas and chased devil squirrels up the vines snaring the brick walls of our house. When I fainted after learning of an uncle’s death, Paco resuscitated me with kisses and stuck by my side for days.
After attending a Best Friends adoption event in 2012, my wife and I adopted Louie, a Boston terrier-boxer mix with a hearty appetite for play and romping on the beach. Over time, he became the son I never had. Sadly, Louie developed a fear-based aggression toward strangers that no amount of love or behavioral interventions could cure. He now lives on a horse farm in the next county. Sometimes the strongest part of love is letting go.
Enter Lilly, my wife’s and my doggie daughter of almost six years. Lilly has coaxed the bud of unconditional love to grow and shorn up our parenting skills in the process. Not bad for one who was rejected by her first adoptive family.
Each night when the three of us go to sleep, I say goodnight to my wife and our little girl. I listen as our voices fade into the darkness.
In the silence, I am alone. My breaths poke through the hazy boundary between my self and the space around me. Displacing air molecules, I reach through my loved ones’ pliable edges.
I may be solitary, but I am not separate.